Weekend America for
MAY 24, 2008

Hour 1

It's Fleet Week in the Big Apple, the setting for the latest installment of our Weekend Pass series -- stories about time off in the military. Reporter Kelly McEvers checked out how New Yorkers take to men and women in uniform -- and found the soldiers, sailors and Marines a lot more philosophical than you might expect.

Fleet Week reminds Donna Renae of the old days. Renae served on a Navy ship in the '80s, just as the Navy was starting to let women serve onboard alongside men. She says being a woman among men on shore leave was something she can't forget -- even if she'd like to.

Presidents Day Weekend was a big weekend for Tracy Friedman, who flew from Los Angeles to her hometown of Milwaukee to celebrate her father's 90th birthday. It was a great celebration, and Friedman reflecting on his remarkable and youthful resilience.

We've been asking you about the music that plays in your time off -- your Weekend Soundtrack. This week's story comes from Julie Nicholds. She listens to us in Wauwatosa, Wis. The soundtrack to her weekend is "Stuck in a Moment" by U2, and she tells us how it turned her life around.

On this Memorial Day Weekend, we celebrate the beginning of summer. And what summer means to Karen Roberts is ice cream -- lots and lots of ice cream.
Roberts is a nurse practitioner, so you'd think she'd know her ice cream intake limits. But she and her family decided to push the ice cream envelope...

Most folks associate Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) with winter weather and dark days. But a small percentage experience the disorder in the summer -- they shun the heat and the glare of the sun, and find solace in dark, air-conditioned spaces. We talk with Saskia Smith about how she copes with summer SAD.

Betsy Franco is a children's poet and author of many books. She shares some of her favorite poems about summer, and what it's like to be young and full of wonder as the days turn hot and the nights are full of stars.

The Koch Family has an unshakable Memorial Day Weekend tradition: spending the month of May in Indianapolis for the Indy 500. This weekend, they will spend their 49th month together since 1960. Theirs is an enduring story of family bonds and cherished memories, anchored by one of the biggest events in motor sports.

Hour 2

Like many veterans of his generation, Don LaFond has never been too open with his emotions about the war. Now, he talks about them every Friday, in a support group for older vets. Weekend America's Krissy Clark joins one of those groups, where vets finally open up about the horrors they experienced.

Ilana Rice is only 16, but she's already making a difference for veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. She's linking treatment of PTSD with the relationships veterans make with those who haven't seen the horrors of war, and how that dynamic might lead to better treatment.

Indiana Jones has taught the world what it takes to be an archaeologist: carry a bullwhip and avoid Nazis. Real-world archaeologist Rebecca Graff's brand of archeology is a little closer to home -- she and a team of 20 undergrads are digging up Chicago's Jackson Park to find artifacts from the World's Fair of 1893.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have been breeding apples for 100 years, and developed the Honeycrisp variety a little more than 30 years ago. The patent expires this fall -- so this weekend, breeders are busy cross-pollinating trees in search of the next Honeycrisp.

What does the story of food say about the American story? Amy Evans, an oral historian with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, visited Chicago to collect stories from restaurants specializing in Southern recipes and soul food. Those stories mirror the African-American experience.

When Julia Barton was 11, she was introduced to the strange and magical world of Renaissance faires when her parents' music ensemble was invited to perform at the famed Scarborough Faire outside of Dallas. This weekend, she returned to catch up with some old characters from her youth.